


KwamiBusted

by Nomolosk



Series: KwamiBusted [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal, post-Kwamibuster, spoilers for season 3 ep. Kwamibuster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-13 10:27:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21242585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nomolosk/pseuds/Nomolosk
Summary: Ms. Mendeleiev notices something inconvenient as Chat Noir is taking her home.Picks up in the last few minutes of the Kwamibuster episode





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because IT'S BEEN BOTHERING ME

Chat Noir gave one last look around the now empty and repaired roof of the TVi station building before fixing his science teacher with a stern look.

“You need to keep our secret, if you want us to keep protecting Paris from akumas, Ms. Mendeleiev.”

“Well, I… oh, I guess you’re right. Fine, fine.”

“Thank you. Now let’s get you back to s-your school, alright?” Chat said, stuttering slightly when he almost forgot to pretend that she didn’t teach him in class everyday.

Ms. Mendeleiev awkwardly shuffled close enough for Chat Noir to wrap an arm around her waist. Not that Chat could blame her, he was feeling very awkward about carrying an older woman, one who was his teacher to boot, across the city in that style. Still, it couldn’t be helped. He detached his baton and prepared to vault away. It was a good thing the baton didn’t seem to have much in the way of extending limitations. He wasn’t quite sure how far it would extend before stopping, but he knew it rivaled the heights of most buildings in Paris, which was fortunate for him.

Ms. Mendeleiev gasped and wrapped herself fully around him the moment he stepped off the roof with her, and he grimaced to himself. Not a memory he wanted to hold on to, thank you very much. Now, if only Ladybug had let him take  _ Marinette _ home… aaand, he stopped that train of thought in it’s tracks. 

But the point remained. He was much more comfortable being close to his cute classmate than to just about anyone else but Nino, and occasionally Alya. He put up with Chloe because she was his oldest friend, and… well, she was Chloe. Lila honestly made him cringe far more than Chloe ever had. But Marinette… he’d rescued her a few times now as Chat Noir, and she’d never even been phased by it. Meanwhile Ms. Mendeleiev was screeching in his ear. 

Then his brain caught up to  _ what _ she was shrieking in his ear.

“Look, look! Turn around! Chat Noir- just  _ STOP! _ ” 

Confused, Chat came to rest on a rooftop- they hadn’t actually made it that far from the TVi building. His science teacher detached herself and pointed straight back to the building they’d just left. Chat turned around. His mouth dropped open. Because what he was seeing couldn’t be real, could it?

There was a ladybug swarm over the building, and the billboard he’d cataclysmed was slowly rising back up into view.

“But… what?” he whispered. This had already happened. It had! He’d watched it happen! Ladybug had yo-yoed in from… somewhere… and released the butterfly, purifying it. Then she’d released the miraculous ladybugs and the multiple Multimice had rejoined into a normal sized person, and taken off the necklace… revealing Marinette… 

Chat’s mouth shut with a snap, even as he watched Ladybug yo-yo over the side of the building followed by a cloud of multi-colored dots that could only be the kwamis she had brought to the fight. The wind brought only a faint echo of their shouts and hoots of joy, even to his enhanced ears.

His brain couldn’t comprehend what his eyes were seeing. Had seen.  _ Two ladybug swarms? _ How could that be possible? Why was it even necessary?

He shook his head quickly. Alarms were going off inside his head, and he needed to get Ms. Mendeleiev back to school as soon as possible, and  _ he didn’t have time to muse about the ramifications _ . He turned back to his teacher, only to see her glaring at him with her hands on her hips, as she so often glared at her classes of scientifically illiterate students.

“Care to explain  _ that _ , mister super secret superhero?”

Chat Noir opened his mouth to lie… but what could he even say? They’d both witnessed the same thing.

“... No,” he said, with finality. “I don’t care to explain that. Now, let’s get you back to your school. Unless you’d rather I take you home?”

“You can drop me off at the nearest metro station, thank you very much!” she said with a huff. 

“Ms. Mendeleiev…” Chat Noir began. “You know, I’m actually a fan of science. Physics is my favorite subject, in fact. And I’d be all for exploring the scientific ramifications of kwamis and superpowers, if it weren’t for the inconvenient little detail that revealing their secrets would also benefit whoever is terrorizing this city. Right now, Hawkmoth doesn’t know anything about my or My Lady’s powers that we haven’t shown him in a fight. Do you really think that needs to change?”

Ms. Mendeleiev growled in frustration but had the grace to look down. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Darn that reality,” Chat quipped. “Always getting in the way of scientific progress, am I right?”

Ms. Mendeleiev snapped her head back up. “Young man, it is not reality that is at fault here. What is at fault is the fact that kwamis and superpowers are even  _ needed _ in this day and age. I believe you are acquainted with Ms. Chloe Bourgeios? Well, much as I don’t particularly care to emulate her, what this is, is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.”

And with that, she allowed him to pick her back up and carry her down to the street, where she power-walked away from him down the steps to the metro.

Chat Noir meanwhile, vaulted back to school, his head in a whirl.

\----

Mindful of Plagg’s warning from earlier that day, Adrien didn’t say anything to his kwami about what had happened. He finished the school day and got through his regular after school activities as normally as possible, not letting on that anything out of the ordinary had happened to him that day. Neither did Plagg mention anything, although he must have picked something up. He didn’t know how, but Plagg had some way of monitoring what was going on around Adrien even when he was transformed. It was the only way to explain some of his comments after certain akuma battles.

He came home from a last minute photoshoot and sat down at his piano, letting his fingers fly over the keys in a familiar pattern while his brain worked overtime. Because not saying anything didn’t mean Adrien wasn’t thinking about it. He’d seen two ladybug swarms.  _ Two. _ But it didn’t make any sense because the only reason for a ladybug swarm was to set things to rights. And things had already been set to rights… except they obviously hadn’t, because then  _ why the other swarm? _

Not to mention the fact that he’d seen Ladybug leave the roof twice, once with Marinette and once with a cloud of kwamis following her. And he knew that Ladybug would never just dump a civilian in the middle of the city. No, she would have taken the time to take Marinette all the way back to school, or to her home, just like he’d intended to do with Ms. Mendeleiev. But if she’d done that, she wouldn’t have had the time to get back to the TVi building and release another swarm, not when he’d left with Ms. Mendeleiev just a few minutes after Ladybug had left with Marinette.

No matter how he spun it, or tried to excuse it, or tried to come up with some convoluted reasoning or way, it just wasn’t possible to ignore what must actually have happened. Ladybug had tricked him somehow. Well, him and Ms. Mendeleiev. It was possible that Mendeleiev was the real target of the trickery here. After all, she’d come perilously close to revealing their identities. But why the trickery, then? Simply releasing a real swarm and letting Chat take her home with a stern warning should have been enough, right? Unless… unless the real target had been him. Chat Noir.

Adrien’s hands stilled as the implications exploded in his mind. Ladybug wanted Chat Noir to think… what? 

The first time he’d seen Multimouse, he’d mistaken her for Ladybug. It was a reasonable assumption, considering that he’d seen Tikki get sucked into Kwamibuster’s holding tank, and he knew Ladybug wasn’t the kind to run away from a fight. He’d assumed she’d gone to Master Fu and gotten a different miraculous. That was logical. She had to protect her identity, and she had to find a way to fight Kwamibuster. She couldn’t do either of those things as a civilian.

But then Multimouse had insisted that she wasn’t Ladybug, and that Ladybug had told her to tell him to meet Ladybug on the roof. And he’d accepted that without question. It wasn’t the first time Ladybug brought someone new to the team. 

But then, where had the illusion come from? Rena Rouge didn’t have the ability to get as small as Multimouse, and it had to have been her powerset used to create it. But again… why? Why go to the bother of making an illusion of a ladybug swarm?

Unless… unless the  _ swarm _ wasn’t the point. Unless the point was to keep  _ him _ from… his mind stuttered to a halt.

Plagg. Plagg had warned him not to try and figure out Ladybug’s identity. Plagg had, in the past, more than heavily suggested that he, as Adrien or as Chat Noir, pursue Marinette romantically. Plagg had immediately dismissed Adrien’s earlier idea that Marinette might be Ladybug, after seeing her slip away from the library right after Ms. Mendeleiev held up those crudely drawn, yet recognizable pictures of what could only be Plagg and Tikki. 

And the illusion had put Ladybug and Marinette side by side. Making it crystal clear that Marinette couldn’t possibly be Ladybug. And Adrien knew Marinette well enough to know that she would never have just taken off the miraculous like that- not in the open. He’d overheard her railing at Alya about protecting the superheroes identities often enough to know she wouldn’t have done that- not in front of Chat Noir, and definitely not in front of Ms. Mendeleiev who was, for goodness sakes,  _ her _ teacher, too.

No, this illusion was meant for Chat Noir. It was meant to convince him that Marinette couldn’t possibly be Ladybug. Because both their kwamis had been in the same place at the same time, and now their identities were close to being revealed. And, because she was Ladybug, instead of coming up with some half-baked lie, like, “I have no idea what my kwami was doing in that  _ elementary _ school…” (Adrien’s mind added a ‘hur hur’ to the end of that), she went full out, using the miraculous she needed to beat kwamibuster to also protect her civilian identity in the most compelling way- visually.

Adrien had no idea how she’d done that, to be honest. But the point was, she had done it. Somehow, she’d used the fox miraculous power of illusion to fool everyone into thinking Ladybug and Multimouse were different people. Specifically, him.

He closed his eyes as the realization of what that meant washed over him. Oh, how he loved her clever, misdirecting heart. Of course she wouldn’t want to give up being Ladybug any more than he wanted to give up being Chat Noir. And until she allowed an identity reveal between them, he had to keep silent on the subject.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to get closer to Marinette. Maybe Chat Noir could pay her a visit to congratulate her on her performance as Multimouse, since Chat had “seen” her “detransform,” but what he really wanted to do was get closer to her as Adrien.

Which might be difficult, considering how nervous and ill-at-ease she always was around him at school. But… well, father always said that you had to work hard for the things in life that were worth having.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was meant to be a one-shot, but then I really wanted to write the scene where Chat both teases and reassures Marinette.

Marinette sighed wearily, hauling herself out of her trapdoor onto the balcony. The sun had set hours ago, she was done with her homework, none of her projects were demanding her attention just now, and she should have been sleeping. She was unbelievably exhausted from her day, but sleep just would not come. So she’d gone down to the kitchen to make a cup of mint and chamomile tea.

She reached down for the cup and almost spilled it all over her bed when she heard a soft thump behind her and a low voiced, “Good evening, Marinette.”

Clutching the cup in a rigid hand, she carefully pulled it up through the trapdoor and placed it firmly on the roof before glaring at Chat Noir over her shoulder. “It’s a good thing for you that I  _ didn’t _ spill this all over my bed,” she said, gesturing to her cup of tea. She sighed. “What are you doing here, Chat Noir? It’s late.”

She loved her partner, she really did, but… today had been rough. Not only had she had several identity reveal scares- first with the ‘kwami nonsense’ and then with the akuma caused by the kwami nonsense- but she’d had to shoulder the weight of all the miraculouses in the box as well. Using Multimouse had been a stroke of sheer genius, since it allowed her to split the burden between several ‘selves,’ while she fought the akuma, but as soon as they’d merged again, the weight returned. Even after she’d returned them all to the box she’d felt more than usually exhausted.

“I’m sorry, Princess, I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll leave you alone. Good night,” Chat Noir said humbly, ears flattening as he turned to leap back off the balcony.

“Wait,” Marinette called before she could stop herself. But really, how was she supposed to let him just run off like that all hurt and embarrassed? Chat Noir paused, balanced on the railing, and tilted his head back toward her. “I’m sorry,” Marinette said, in a softer tone. She grabbed her cup of tea and rose, walking over to join him at the railing. “It’s been a... kind of disappointing day, and I’m tired. And I took it out on you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Chat Noir angled himself toward her slightly, still balanced on the balls of his feet. “It’s alright. It’s late, and I probably shouldn’t have disturbed you, but…”

“... but?” Marinette asked, sipping her tea.

“It’s silly. I just…” he paused a moment. “I wanted to make sure you got back to your school without any trouble.”

Marinette looked fully at him, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Well, Ladybug just kind of dropped you off somewhere, right? I mean, you would have had to either walk all that way, or pay for a train ticket. I hardly think you would have been carrying enough cash for a taxi.”

Marinette stared at him, completely confused.

“To be honest, I’m actually kind of ticked at her,” Chat continued, looking out over the roofs toward the painfully dark skeleton of Notre Dame.

“At L-Ladybug?” Marinette squeaked. “W-why?

“Well, we don’t do that, as a general rule, you know. Either we take a civilian all the way to their destination, or we don’t offer at all. It’s just rude to do anything else.”

“B-but I…” Marinette’s words failed her.

“It’s ok to be mad at her,” Chat reassured her kindly. “I’ll talk to her and hopefully she’ll come see you to apologize.”

“ _ Apologize?! _ ”

“Hey, we may be superheroes, but underneath all this magic and masks, we’re only human, Marinette. We can make mistakes just like anyone else.” He turned his head to smile at her. “Not that you have anything to worry about there,  _ Multimouse _ .” He nudged her arm with his knee affectionately. “Great job, by the way. It’s rare for someone to be so level-headed during their first akuma battle. I’m  _ quite _ impressed, and I’m sure Ladybug was, too.”

Here Marinette was on firmer ground. She still had no idea why Chat Noir thought Ladybug wouldn’t have taken her all the way back to school, but at least she could reinforce the impression that she would not be making another appearance as Multimouse.

She sighed. “But then I ruined it. I don’t know what I was thinking, taking off the necklace like that!” She had a sudden thought and added, trying to sound wistful, “No wonder Ladybug dropped me off. I must have disappointed her.”

Chat Noir turned his head away from her, but she could have sworn his lips twitched before he hid his face.

“Oh, I don’t think it was that, honestly. It… might have had something to do with her secret identity.”

Marinette’s head whipped around and she practically bored through his skull with the intensity of her gaze.

“What?” she managed to ask, with a suddenly dry mouth. To cover, she took some more sips of her rapidly cooling tea.

“Well… I saw her yo-yoing away from the building a few minutes after I left with that school teacher, whats-her-name. She must have had a pretty compelling reason to go back so soon after leaving.”

“O-oh?” Marinette asked.

“Obviously, or she wouldn’t have gone back. She must’ve doubled back after dropping you off. Maybe she dropped something that could give her away, or… anyway, it doesn’t really matter. It’s weird, though… I could’ve sworn I saw another miraculous ladybug swarm after I left.” He took a deep breath of the night air, and turned to smile down at her. 

Marinette was frozen. She couldn’t think, couldn’t react, couldn’t process what she’d just heard. A surge of irritation kicked her out of her paralysis. After all she’d been through that day… had it even worked? Did Chat suspect her now? And if he did, what should she do about it?

“That’s weird,” Marinette finally said, and took another sip. A non-committal, safe comment. But this was Chat Noir she was talking to. She couldn’t just leave it at that. “It… it doesn’t bother you that you don’t know the reason?”

“Yeah, maybe a little,” he said, shrugging one shoulder. “But I’m sure it was important. Ladybug will tell me when she’s ready. I trust her, you know?”   
  


His smile was gentle, not his usual smirk or cocky grin. 

Marinette took a deep breath. “Well, if you really think it’s identity related… shouldn’t you tell her?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Chat said. “It would only worry her, and she’s got enough to deal with as it is. We both of us came really close to having to give up our miraculouses today. Can you imagine what she would think if I told her I saw something weird? It would mess with her head, and then maybe she wouldn’t be able to focus in the next akuma attack.” He sighed and hung his head a little. 

“As much as I  _ want _ to know who she is, and for her to know me, I get it. If we have to give up our miraculouses then the next Ladybug and Chat Noir will be just as inexperienced as we were at first. And Hawkmoth has learned so much since he first appeared… I have faith in the person who would pick our successors, but... it would be like just handing over our miraculous to Hawkmoth personally. I couldn’t watch that happen, and I know Ladybug would feel the same way.”

He looked back up at Marinette. “Ladybug doesn’t have to worry about me trying to find her identity, not now. So why worry her over this for nothing? Like I said… I trust her. And she can trust me.”

He smiled again, that gentle smile, and then said. “But it’s late and I see your tea is gone… I should head out and let you get some sleep. Marinette… thank you for today. You really helped us out, and I don’t think the battle would have gone our way without you.”

He winked at her and then leapt out into the darkness, calling a faint goodnight as he reached the next roof over. Marinette leaned weakly against the railing for a moment before turning and climbing back through her trapdoor and into bed. Once she was settled, she tried to puzzle through what had just happened.

“Tikki?” she called. A sleepy burble was all the answer she got. Tikki had been through just as much as Marinette had that day. As alarmed as Marinette was by Chat’s unexpected visit, she had to admit that he’d seemed very mature about the whole thing. He wasn’t going to tell Ladybug about what he’d seen, unaware that he’d already done so. He didn’t want to worry Ladybug even more about her secret identity, and he wasn’t going to pry. Really, all he’d come over to do was to thank and congratulate her,  _ Marinette _ , for the job  _ she _ did as Multimouse. Surely, surely… that was the whole and only reason. The rest was just making conversation.

Right?

**Author's Note:**

> I have another idea on how this illusion could have been undone, which I will write up some other time.


End file.
